University of Chicago - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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if-an .Qi C A P A N-D G 0 W N I 7 iv ' , 1 at President Harper was a dreamer, a creator, a builder. Other foundations of the University might be considered. Other claims upon the un- dying gratitude of the University to him might be urged. He gathered a great store of materials. He found an army of friends for the institution. He stimu- lated the imagination and fired the zeal of those who had money, which, under his direction, they invested in land, in stone, in mortar, in books, in men. But his Ubattlemented towers will be lost in the lines of noble structures which will grace the quadrangles in days to come. His generous friends will be but a small part of a larger company of patrons of tomorrow. His personal iniiuence will become less distinct as those whom he stimulated and inspired follow him into the shadows. But the foundations he laid deep in the concrete will abide. The University, the child of his imaginative fancy, will bear his stamp through ages and through centuries. If he is rightly called the spiritual founder of the Uni- versity of Chicago, his immortality must find expression in the spiritual aspects of the institution rather than in the physical. And there can be no doubt in the mind of any one who ever came into close contact with his soul that that is the sort of immortality he would choose, were he himself to make the selection. Investigation, human service, accessibility. These were the key words which Dean Small used once in appreciation of Dr. Harper's contribution to the Uni- versity of Chicago ideal. That was ten years ago., The same ideals remain dominant today. There seems no reason to think that they ever will change. So we go forward, recognizing the steady growth of the University in a decade of wise administration, rejoicing in the prosperity and the power of what we now see beneath the hope-filled western skies, coniident of the unfolding future, but never forgetting the dreamer who visualized his imaginations in stone, the builder who shaped the gathered materials into fabrics of enduring strength, the spiritual founder who put his life into the University of Chicago. From an article entitled, After Ten Years, by Francis W. Sheparolson, which appeared in the Alimmi Magazine for February, 1916. 5 '1 li? V v YP? 17

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WILLIAM RAINEY HARPER First President of the University of Chicago

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CAP AND GOXVN The Students of the First Year 1892-3. T was the profound conviction of all those most interested in founding an instituf tion in Chicago that it would attract a great attendance of students. They were enthusiasts, dreamers of dreams. In that day was fulfilled the scripture which said, Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. But their dreams and visions fell far short of the fullness of the event. One of them Wrote to Mr. Rockefeller in January, 1887: f'Of all places in the world this is the location plainly designated by nature for a great University. Dr. Harper, in endorsing this letter, Wrote: It is safe to make the prediction that in ten years such a University would have more students, if rightly conducted, than Yale or Harvard has today. At that time, 1887, Harvard had sixteen hundred and eighty-eight students in all departments, and Yale had twelve hundred and forty-five. Dr. Harper's prophecy, had it been made public at the time it was Written, would have been regarded as the 1 1 dream of an enthusiast. The number of students in Yale and Harvard was regarded aS Wonderful and quite unapproachable by other institutions. They had reached their great attendance only after some two centuries of history. It is an interesting commentary on Dr. Harper's prophecy that in its fourth year the University of Chicago enrolled eighteen hundred and fifteen students, or one hun- dred and twenty-seven more than were enrolled at Harvard in 1886- 7. If Dr. Harper had written as follows: In ten years such a University will have nearly three times as many students as Harvard now has and nearly four times as many as Yale now has, he would have been a true proprhet. But it is also true that if he had made such a prophecy he would have been looked upon as something Worse than an irresponsible enthusiast and dreamer. No effort was made to secure the students for the first asked for the appropriation of a small sum to be expended in advertising, it Was year. When the secretary 18 M,- . C. 'Q ri 1 L -l 5 ?l 3. W O ir 24525 I